Keeping Little Mountain Park healthy and natural

Last Friday we walked our newest trail, La-Z-Boy, with a Restoration Ecologist. He’d donated some trees and expressed an interest in our work. Given how wet it has been our group was considering a planting in a few places along our trail corridor. His recommendations were:

· The native vegetation looks good, additional planting is optional
· Do not plant before October, unless watering throughout the Summer
· And lastly, “the most important thing” — pull the Herb Robert starts on the edge of La-Z-Boy

Herb Robert (a.k.a. “Stinky Bob”) is a common noxious weed. It is along the edges of most roads, including in the access road in the park. This is an opportunistic plant, taking root in bare soil that is duff free. So this session we’re pulling those starts, and covering the bare soil with duff or mulch. So while eradicating it from the park is not possible, we don’t want to make matters worse. Since this should not take the whole session we’ve got other projects to finish up also.